astronomy

Wouter den Haan

Wouter den Haan is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wouter den Haan rather than just read about it. In short: Wouter J. den Haan (or Denhaan) (born 22 July 1962) is a professor of economics at the London School of Economics, research fellow and programme director of the CEPR, and co-director of the Centre for Macroeconomics. Currently, his main areas of interest are business cycles, frictions in financial and labor markets, and numerical methods to solve models with a large number of heterogeneous agents.

Key takeaways

Wouter den Haan belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wouter den Haan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wouter den Haan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wouter J. den Haan (or Denhaan) (born 22 July 1962) is a professor of economics at the London School of Economics, research fellow and programme director of the CEPR, and co-director of the Centre for Macroeconomics. Currently, his main areas of interest are business cycles, frictions in financial and labor markets, and numerical methods to solve models with a large number of heterogeneous agents.

Biography He graduated cum laude from the MA program at Erasmus University, and received his PhD degree at Carnegie Mellon University in 1991. This dissertation won him the Alexander Henderson Award for excellence in economics, an award also won by Nobel Laureates Oliver Williamson, Dale T. Mortensen, Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott. After earning his PhD he became an assistant professor at the University of California at San Diego, where he was a professor from 2001 to 2004. At the beginning of 2003 he moved back to Europe and became a professor of economics at London Business School. In 2006 he received a VICI award and became a professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Rochester and the Wharton School and also a visiting scholar at the European Central Bank, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington DC, and several regional Federal Reserve Banks. He is a fellow of the European Economic Association.

Research interests Uncertainty and forward-looking agents play a crucial role in modern macroeconomics and Wouter den Haan helped in making it feasible to analyze models with these features by developing computer algorithms to solve these models. Together with Albert Marcet he developed the Parameterized Expectations Algorithm (PEA) and the “Denhaan-Marcet statistic” is used to evaluate the accuracy of numerical solutions. His more recent work deals with solving macroeconomic models in which heterogeneity and contracting issues play a key role. The key theme in Wouter den Haan's research is the idea that to understand macroeconomic fluctuations one has to understand how transactions take place at the micro level. In particular, it is important to understand how agents find each other (and in particular what the search costs are and how long it takes), what agents know about each other (and in particular whether there are informational asymmetries), and what kind of contracts agents can write. The importance of these “frictions” for macroeconomics has been understood for quite some time but only recently do we have the computational tools to analyze macroeconomic models that are buildup from non-trivial micro foundations. Wouter den Haan has applied this theme both to labour and financial markets. His research has shown that a job-market matching model is very helpful in accounting for the high unemployment rates in several European countries. In particular, his research makes clear that the Growth and Stability pact—by keeping tax rates high until the number of unemployment has actually dropped—may make it more difficult to move towards the better equilibrium of low unemployment rates. His work on the role of frictions in financial markets has shown how initially small shocks can lead to large fluctuations because of the feedback effects between the destruction of relationships of lending institutions and their clients and the amount that investors want to provide to these lending institutions. His research on financial markets also looks at the effects that changes in the interest rate by the central bank has on the economy. His recent work shows both empirically and theoretically that frictions between banks and consumers may actually be more important for economic fluctuations than frictions between banks and firms.

Teaching In 2007 and 2012, Wouter den Haan won the Tinbergen Institute Teacher of the Year Award. According to a statement on the official Tinbergen Institute, "Students sincerely appreciate the effort he put into his courses and the MPhil sequence of macroeconomics courses in general." In 2012, he won the LSE Department of Economics Best Supervisor Award.

References

External links Home Page Official CV

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wouter den Haan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wouter den Haan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wouter den Haan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wouter den Haan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wouter den Haan

In research: Wouter den Haan appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wouter den Haan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wouter den Haan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1962 births, Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam, Academics of the London School of Economics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wouter den Haan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wouter den Haan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wouter den Haan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wouter den Haan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wouter den Haan in simple terms?

Why does Wouter den Haan matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wouter den Haan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wouter den Haan.